That’s still our sense of things, though our admiration for Kelly continues to grow. Not so much because of his .868 winning percentage, but because of the eggs this Duck was sitting on for 10 days after turning down the Eagles and telling Oregon he’d be staying put. He had both the cold-bloodedness to walk away from the table in Philly and the cold-heartedness to B.S. his bosses right to their faces. Get this man a Congressional seat! And to think, just six years ago Kelly was an offensive coordinator—at New Hampshire.

Mark Helfrich inherits an Oregon program that is under the NCAA microscope. (AP Photo)

Maybe he’s so brave, so bold, so driven to succeed that he’ll pull a Pete Carroll and go from dominator of the Pac-12 to toast of an NFL town. Who knows?

And—if you’re an Oregon fan or a Stanford fan or a USC fan or just a college football fan—who cares?

Forget Chip Kelly. It’s all about the future of the Ducks now.

The nutshell version nearly two weeks after Oregon’s fourth BCS appearance in a row: Will the Ducks ever have it as good again?

Some names come to mind as we ponder that question.

Mark Helfrich, of course. He’s expected to be the third consecutive offensive coordinator (following Kelly and Mike Bellotti) promoted into the head coaching job at Oregon. From the standpoints of philosophy and strategy, Helfrich makes all the sense in the world for the Ducks.

Continuity matters, too, and Helfrich—who was Kelly’s OC all four years—offers that in a big way. He’s extremely popular among the Ducks players. He’s a native of the state. He’s only 39. A-pluses all the way around with this guy.

But Helfrich can’t possibly win at Kelly’s level if the elephant in the room rears its ugly head. And that would be Willie Lyles, or the NCAA fallout related to his unseemly association with the school.

Maybe Kelly isn’t such a shrewd negotiator after all. Maybe he has something else in common with Carroll: the same sense of self-preservation that leads some captains to abandon sinking ships. One has to suspect Oregon smells real trouble coming for the program when it appears, likely in the spring, before the NCAA committee on infractions. How many uncomfortable conversations about Lyles’ phony scouting service and the NCAA’s new enforcement team must’ve taken place behind closed doors in Eugene over the past 10 days?

And here’s another name: Lane Kiffin. If you were on Twitter on Wednesday, you undoubtedly saw jokes about Kiffin celebrating Kelly’s departure from the Pac-12. But the joke has been on Kiffin ever since he took over for Carroll.

Is Kiffin, who just endured a humiliating 7-6 campaign, an exposed head coach—all name, no game? Or is he a man who had no real chance to succeed at a championship level after rules violations committed on Carroll’s watch led to a bowl ban at USC and, far more damaging, a massive reduction in scholarships?

Perhaps he’s both, but he’s definitely the latter.

If Helfrich is faced with NCAA-imposed obstacles that are anything close to what went down at USC, he’ll struggle as surely as Kiffin has. The only difference is not as many folks out there will enjoy it.